Welcome to The Very Merry Theatre's Saturday DRAMA Club log. Here you will find an archive of the plays we co-create, profiles of regular club goers, young thespian philosophies and wild what-have-yous!

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Masks of Magic

We spent July 5th-8th crafting the most mystical, magical likenesses of our faces. Using plaster cast and papier mache we crafted these pieces in the tradition of commedia del arte. Our pageant entitled The People of the Sun was an original play I created, but it was molded by the actors.

"The People of the Sun are very different from the people of the earth. For instance, the way that they eat. They only eat Hot Dogs for breakfast, drink hot water for supper and feast on Hot Buffalo Wings for desert. One thing that they would never eat is Chili.

You would also be surprised by the manner in which they groom. On Earth we use what is called "water", but the People of the Sun have a technique known as "sun bathing", which uses nothing but rays.

Most interesting is their method of travel. The People of the Sun only travel in Hot Air Balloons.

Day in and day out they practice these ways of life. And because the People of the Sun are a Utopian society, they enjoy quite a bit of togetherness. Each night they will gather around a flaming sun crater to share words. Usually these gatherings will begin with a joke. Followed by a story. And sometimes after the stories of morality and romance, they will indulge in a scary story. But not to send the young ones to bed feeling scared, the night always ends with a soothing bedtime story.

And night after night this is how they end the day.

And day after day, year after year, century after century, the have begun their day with The Dances of the Sun.

But on this day something was different. We see a young person noticing something unique about the sky. What is it? A comet! A comet headed straight for the sun! Panic ensues. The comet HITS THE SUN!

And when The People of the Sun come to, they find themselves wrapped within the coiled, rainbow tail of the comet. They are traversing through space to an unknown place. Then the comets tail uncoils and gently drops them into the lap of the moon.

The People of the Sun try to resume their ways of life on the moon. But it is very difficult. For one, the moon is cold. And because the moon is cold, their hearts grew cold. Not only was the moon cold, but its lands were crowded by the spirits of the extinct dinosaurs. The People of the Sun longed for a warm place, a place to call their own again. They looked to the sun knowing it was too far away to ever go back.

Only one moon being felt compassion for their dilemma: The Spirit of the Great Pterodactyl. The Spirit had a warm place in his heart, a memory of a warm place he had lived long ago. Knowing that this place was not the sun, but that its warmth might help the People of the Sun feel at peace again, The Spirit asks for the people to climb on his back. He flies them all the way to The Earth.

Once on The Earth, the People of the Sun become what we think of as "invisible", although they are a very strong presence. We feel their appreciation of our warmth in what you could call "small miracles". For instance:

When you have a really bad case of indigestion and they fight fire with fire.When your bike is hurtling down a hill out of control and the brakes kick in better than ever.When you are in your darkest, coldest hour of need.

Meet the DIRECTOR

When Don Wright gave me the opportunity to begin the Saturday Drama Club at 333, I was elated. The lightning bolts of creative energy bursting from a kid's smile always charge me with joy to continue doing the hard work of being an artist, mother, mentor and community builder. I love collaborating with kids to make spontaneous works of art with intentions of exploration, inquiry, connectivity and fun (of course). I believe that when we are organizing around each other, working together, merging ideas and converging our energies that wild inspirations are inevitable!